Many people around the state have heard of the Area M salmon fishery. Lately, it’s been tossed around like a bad word. That’s a clever tactic used to dehumanize the people of my region – and it’s working. It’s much easier to vilify and politicize a name on a chart than to acknowledge multigenerational, Indigenous Alaskan fishing families like my own.
Like many Alaskans, my relationship with salmon is rooted in culture and family.
My grandfather took his first boat ride when he was just three days old. He was raised in Unga village, out in the Shumagins, a small cluster of islands about halfway between Unalaska and Kodiak. Fishing was part of his story, as it had been his father's, his mother’s, and his Unangan ancestors'. Today I am watching his story unfold through my own eyes.
My great-grandfather trapped small game along the Alaska Peninsula between fishing seasons. My great-grandmother worked on the crab processing line and at the local cannery. This is a common story in my region. When fisheries disappear, so does stability.
As a kid growing up in Unga, fishing dictated daily life and was the backbone of my grandfathers community. When the cod fishery began collapsing in the 1950’s and 1960’s, his family was forced to leave. The school closed, local business owners fled, and boats no longer dropped anchor in Delarof Harbor. The rug was literally pulled from under them. My grandfather still shudders when he talks about this.
Moving to Sand Point, just a few miles away on Popof Island, was both frightening and comforting. My grandfather met others who shared the same story. Sand Point became home to families who had been displaced from native villages such as Belkofski, Sanak, and Unga. A resilient group.
This is a story similar to one felt generations earlier in villages along the Aleutian Chain. During WWII, many families were evacuated by the US military to internment camps, and the diaspora reached into Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest. Unangax̂ people continue to live in these areas today, and returning home is difficult and expensive, widening generational gaps.
This is not to say we lack the ability to stay connected. We have always shared the waters. Salmon has been a constant in our lives. Our cultural practices are woven into a net that sustains rural Alaskan fishing communities such as Sand Point, King Cove, and False Pass, as well as our families afar. Fishermen share their ocean catch with local community members to practice subsistence.
Like me, my grandfather began fishing to spend time with his father. By the time he was six, he was spending his summers at their set-gillnet sites near Kelly Rock. He says this is where he learned the most about himself and work. My grandfather was sent to Anchorage for high school
because Sand Point did not offer such a level of education. I am grateful to be a Sand Point School alumnus. I know this to be a dream he wished for himself.
Today, Sand Point School is seeing record-low enrollment, and any reduction in fish tax funding will threaten its survival. We have seen other schools in the area close over the years, and once a school closes, it’s nearly impossible to reopen.
By fifteen, he was fishing with his older brother, by nineteen, he had begun building his family with my grandmother. Fishing was how they got by.
Limited entry for the Area M salmon fishery was introduced in 1974, but he didn’t qualify under the point system for a permit. Instead he worked hard to purchase his own. A claim to waters that had already been sustaining our families through subsistence and trade practices for thousands of years. This is not a new story. Colonization swept through our region like it did the rest of our state. We have always been forced to adapt.
Over the years, my grandfather has watched fisheries grow more unstable. He has seen the collapse of the cod and crab fisheries, and fears watching the salmon fishery go as well. Introducing his sons to fishing is one of his greatest joys, though now he worries they won’t have anything left.
When access and opportunity are removed, knowledge and community slowly follow. As a multigeneration Unangax̂ fisherman, I deserve to live and work where my family has historically done so. My grandfather deserves to see his family create strong ties to the livelihood that sustained generations before him. There is no Sand Point without the Area M salmon fishery. I know this with certainty through his lived experience; he has watched his community collapse once before.
When the personal impact of these fisheries is questioned, it feels like an attack to me. But to my grandfather, it feels like deja vu. Sand Point is where my story begins. I fear I may be among the last to claim this if this fishery is slowly stripped away. And should that come to pass, I refuse to allow my identity and humanity to be stripped away with it.